That REALLY escalated fast. (Hoosjim's 14th)

[hoosjim]

Cautiously optimistic tonight. We had a good session with Jessica our MC/IC. Mostly talked about boundaries and expectations... mostly mine... and, in the end, W was accepting of these. But there were some hard moments. Session ended up going well over an hour and a half-- but she stuck with us, even out of town for a family illness. Like i said, she's truly a blessing.

I feel better after hearing how Jessica guided the sessions. Supporting you about BFF and all the other issues, let your W see that it's not coming from a paranoid H.

Yes, this was definitely a HUGE help. Not only in terms of having another, authoritative party there taking the position that "Your H has a right to ask for some things... He didn't have to come back, and he doesn't have to stay... you need to be prepared to make sacrifices if you want to save your MR", but also in terms of helping soften my sometimes rough rhetoric. A couple of times, things i said W kind of wrinkled her nose a bit and Jessica would say something like "So what you're saying is" or "let me see if i can understand your feeling on this" and W would be immediately nodding her head like "Okay, i get it now." By a similar token, after the session, when we were upstairs lying in bed holding each other (and no, we didn't "do it", you lechers ) when W was going to bed (she has work early tomorrow so i lay up there with her a while before coming down to work out), she said to me "I wish i could remember what Jessica said about talking to bff (breaking the news about the cutting contact), because it really made sense and was said in a way that i think bff will have a hard time objecting to." I couldn't remember exactly either, so i suggested she text Jessica, which she did.

Another point that Jessica was clear on, which i think was helpful for getting my W in the right frame of mind was that "You two had not begun to do productive work on this thing until just this week. Everything that came before was largely meaningless. You had to get to this point before you could move forward. What comes next is up to you and how committed you are to doing the work."

Just b/c the younger friend attends the wine downs sometimes .......cannot be indicative of your W's or Doc' behavior & motives. It's not so much of what actually takes place during those wine downs, but it makes your W and the Doc more familiar and comfortable with each other.....and what that can lead to......texting, etc. They were already, according to your W, discussing family & marriage. It's not a big leap from there into more personal matters. My concern is that you have a tendency to make exceptions or excuses. Which leads me to another concern I have.

Much, if not all of this, was addressed by my conditions/boundaries/expectations. I basically described it as three "Big picture" things i needed:
Complete accountability, complete commitment, complete transparency. At any rate, no one-on-ones and no two-on-ones even, with any member of the opposite sex, were the non-negotiable stipulations there, as
was some sort of "Safety" on any non-work related texting (either copying spouses, or sharing text threads, or just plain not doing it which, IMHO, is pretty smart for any couple.) "Acting married" was also a general item, which included wearing our rings which, i should note, she is already doing, which should also hopefully give that doctor at least a little pause in case he was getting any ideas.

I hope you won't look at who has the most leverage. In the past, I could almost see it defeating you when you would take that mental approach. In fact, I often felt you tried to compromise your feelings/thoughts b/c you felt helpless about your W's behavior.

The bottom line is that you (and the counselor) have laid out these stipulations that your W will choose to meet or ignore. Neither of you can retreat to old habits. That includes you trying to explain away some things you feel in your gut could turn into problems. IMHO, you have all the leverage.......as long as she knows you will not buy into her b.s., and as long you know you will not hesitate to leave if she's not doing what you need in building a healthy relationship.

^^^^This. Yes. Absolutely. I think tonight i got my "last week" mojo back tonight. Think by the end of the session she was once again painfully aware of how close i was and still am to not being here, and that she's walking a thin line right now. A couple of times things came up that kinda sorta threatened to derail the discussion or disarm my attempts and i stomped them out. One time, my counselor, who is great, but still human, for some reason brought the idea into the convo of, if my W was coming completely clean about her A activities, that i should at some point come completely clean about how i monitored W. (Counselor is very big on "all truth, all the time, no secrets ever). W then made some noise about "feeling safe", and "privacy", etc. and maybe i should "come clean" and i was like "Whoah whoah whoah... I have absolutely nothing to prove here. I was DONE a week ago... and the only reason i am back is because i believed and chose to trust that belief that you were ready to work on us, to do whatever it took, including being fully accountable for the affair and what happened. And to rebuild the trust that having that affair destroyed. If you're not, that's you're decision, but i have nothing to prove." Boom. "You're right, I'm sorry". she said.

She also was resistant to cutting off the bff relationship, as predicted. I knew this would be the hardest for her, but i stood firm on it. In the end I made clear to her it was non-negotiable. MC was, as i said, helpful in this regard. There was no way i would do this with her nurturing such an unsafe relationship. By the time it was over, she was actually eager to get it over with.

And whoever said women are always testing, y'all are dead on. Need to be ready to meet that test. I think

In the end, she was willing, even eager to do the work afterward... planning when to work in the book and thinking of how to tell bff.

She also spilled pretty much everything about the A, with no demand or expectation from me for reciprocating on the monitoring revelations. It was hard, for both of us. But what she told me jibed with what i already knew and hadn't told her on some aspects, and what i had suspected on others (She did see him at the beach, last july, and knew ahead of time he would be there) as well as some things i didn't know. Like i ssaid, it was hard, but it cleared the decks, and she told me even though she feared she would lose me (she even started crying afterward and said "so now you really are going to leave for good, arent you", or something like that. I didn't, and i told her i wouldn't, that she never need fear telling me the truth. She hugged me and sobbed some more.

I think your W will be the model example for a while. Currently, she appears to be willing. I don't know for how long. Look for any signs of back peddling. If she starts feeling you aren't going anywhere......she'll start getting careless again...........unless, she makes great headway in IC, which I am praying that she does. I think she needs the accountability in IC every week, even if it can't be face to face......just making that contact with Jessica, without you, may help a lot.

Yes. Jessica made it clear she is there for W as a backstop if she needs to talk or ever feels "an itch" to do anything ill-advised. "Call me first" she said. She does want to start MC fairly soon, prolly after a couple more weeks of just IC, it turns out, and then work in regular IC situationally as she sees necessary, likely breaking us out of joint sessions when things come up or if either of us requests it. She says her philosophy is that, as much as possible, we should be able to discuss our personal problems in front of each other, even as she knows the importance of IC in cases as complicated as ours.

There is one more thing I want to say about her interactions with OM. I find it hard to understand why he would have been so persistent in chasing your W........considering you had confronted him........if he didn't believe he was getting signals from her. All she had to do was tell him she regretted her behavior, that she loves her H and will not cheat again. But, she didn't. She may have played some kind of cat & mouse game, but he was getting incentive somewhere. Why wouldn't a man give up if he thought it was hopeless?

We already know the cutoff from her in late July was not definitive enough. It did not contain any of those elements "I regret my behavior... I love my H", it was more like "I need to figure things out with me and hoosjim"... almost like a "Wait and see." She admitted that earlier. Further, during this phase, she granted that when he called she did not make any strong efforts to "put him off" and that some of the way she talked to him could have been seen by him as encouraging. Also, dude is just a scumbag. Remember that he targeted her EARLY on social media, perhaps even befriended me to get at her, and was persistent as hell. Bad, bad, bad dude. My wife was certainly a willing participant, but, given her less than strident good bye and her continued answering of his calls, it is not surprising he kept calling.

I wished she would have contacted OM while she was in front of Jessica (if she just couldn't do it in front of you). The whole thing about not wanting the contact made over electronic devices........b/c of what he may do toward her son and all that stuff......I don't know why Jessica bought into it. Maybe she didn't. If your W didn't have the gumption to tell OM, previously, why would she not need a little support when contacting him this time around? IDK, but some of the things she said, just sounded flimsy.

The "no record" thing makes sense to me. Dude contacted our son previously after our confrontation, i think as a "see what i can still do" kind of thing. I don't find it all incredible to think he might do something like that, or at least threaten. AAR, W did not contact him by herself, i was there and said so. And that if he called her again we'd get a restraining order, and after that have him arrested. It was hard on my W, but she kept it together pretty well. Her part was to say "It was wrong, i love my husband, this is over, stay away." Jessica had us script it and discuss it in advance.

Anyway, she needs a plan in how to respond if he does call her at work.....or should he just show up at her office. She cannot make the mistake in thinking she can remain to be on friendly terms, or any of that "friend" stuff. If she's afraid of what he might tell her sons.......then why not just tell them that OM has caused some trouble and not to go anywhere around him or listen to anything he has to say. Whatever..... I would refer to your counselor's advice about it.

She also needs support in how to go about telling BFF. If she says something like, "My H wants me to stop hanging around you", then you know how that will turn. So again, I hope Jessica will supply your W with a model letter or some type of example of how to break ties with BFF.

"Check" on both of these. On telling bff, see above. On handling future OM overtures, she and Jessica had an entire IC session on this.